Vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus
First Claim
1. A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which detects a monitored object around a vehicle from images taken by a single camera mounted on the vehicle, said apparatus comprising:
- a monitored object extraction process unit which extracts an image portion of the monitored object from the image taken by the camera;
a rate-of-change calculation process unit which calculates a rate of change in size of the image portion of an identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit from a plurality of images taken by the camera at predetermined time intervals; and
an arrival time estimation process unit which estimates vehicle arrival time which is the time to arrival of the monitored object at the vehicle based on the rate of change;
wherein the rate-of-change calculation process unit regards an image portion of the monitored object extracted from one of the plurality of images taken by the camera at the predetermined time intervals as a standard image, calculates a correlation degree with an image portion of the monitored object in the other image by enlarging or reducing the standard image at a predetermined ratio, and calculates an enlargement ratio or a reduction ratio of the standard image at the highest correlation degree as the rate of change.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which determines whether there is a possibility of contact between a vehicle and a monitored object around the vehicle with a single camera mounted thereon. It includes a monitored object extraction process unit (20) which extracts an image portion of the monitored object from an image taken by a single infrared camera (2), a rate-of-change calculation process unit (21) which calculates a rate of change in size of the image portion of an identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit (20) from a plurality of images taken by the infrared camera (2) at predetermined time intervals, an arrival time estimation process unit (22) which estimates the time to arrival of the monitored object at the vehicle based on the rate of change, a real space position calculation process unit (23) which calculates a position of the monitored object in the real space based on the rate of change, a movement vector calculation process unit (24) which calculates a movement vector from a displacement of the position of the monitored object in the real space, and a contact determination process unit (25) which determines whether there is a possibility of contact between the monitored object and the vehicle.
30 Citations
9 Claims
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1. A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which detects a monitored object around a vehicle from images taken by a single camera mounted on the vehicle, said apparatus comprising:
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a monitored object extraction process unit which extracts an image portion of the monitored object from the image taken by the camera; a rate-of-change calculation process unit which calculates a rate of change in size of the image portion of an identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit from a plurality of images taken by the camera at predetermined time intervals; and an arrival time estimation process unit which estimates vehicle arrival time which is the time to arrival of the monitored object at the vehicle based on the rate of change; wherein the rate-of-change calculation process unit regards an image portion of the monitored object extracted from one of the plurality of images taken by the camera at the predetermined time intervals as a standard image, calculates a correlation degree with an image portion of the monitored object in the other image by enlarging or reducing the standard image at a predetermined ratio, and calculates an enlargement ratio or a reduction ratio of the standard image at the highest correlation degree as the rate of change.
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2. A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which detects a monitored object around a vehicle from images taken by a single camera mounted on the vehicle, comprising:
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a monitored object extraction process unit which extracts an image portion of the monitored object from the image taken by the camera; a rate-of-change calculation process unit which calculates a rate of change in size of the image portion of an identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit from a plurality of images taken by the camera at predetermined time intervals; and a contact determination process unit which determines whether there is a possibility of contact between the monitored object and the vehicle based on the rate of change; wherein the rate-of-change calculation process unit regards an image portion of the monitored object extracted from one of the plurality of images taken by the camera at the predetermined time intervals as a standard image, calculates a correlation degree with an image portion of the monitored object in the other image by enlarging or reducing the standard image at a predetermined ratio, and calculates an enlargement ratio or a reduction ratio of the standard image at the highest correlation degree as the rate of change. - View Dependent Claims (3, 4, 5)
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6. A vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus which detects a monitored object around a vehicle from images taken by a single camera mounted on the vehicle, said apparatus comprising:
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a monitored object extraction process unit which extracts an image portion of the monitored object from the image taken by the camera; a rate-of-change calculation process unit which calculates a rate of change in size of the image portion of an identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit from a plurality of images taken by the camera at predetermined time intervals; and a contact determination process unit which determines whether there is a possibility of contact between the monitored object and the vehicle based on the rate of change; a position variation calculation process unit which calculates a position variation of the image portion of the identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit from the plurality of images taken by the camera at the predetermined time intervals, wherein the contact determination process unit determines that there is a high possibility of contact between the monitored object and the vehicle when the rate of change in size of the image portion calculated by the rate-of-change calculation process unit indicates a magnification of the image portion, regarding the image portion of the identical monitored object extracted by the monitored object extraction process unit from the plurality of images taken by the camera at the predetermined time intervals from a predetermined time point, and the position variation of the image portion calculated by the position variation calculation process unit is equal to or lower than a predetermined position variation threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9)
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Specification